“I want my house to be full,” says the host of the banquet (Luke 14:23). I hear that. I want our house to be full.

Most people these days call the buildings in which we gather to worship God “churches.” Many people of our particular Church, particularly in the old countries, actually call them “temples,” not “churches.” The Church is the people of God gathered together to worship God. The temple is the place of sacrifice to the Lord. But in the ancient church, it’s interesting to note, the building in which we gather would have been called neither a church nor a temple.

The church, as I say, is the people of God gathered together to worship God, and not the building in which we worship him. As for the temple, there was only ever one building that was a temple – the temple that the Lord commanded be built in Jerusalem. That temple has not been replaced by these buildings in which we worship God, it has been fulfilled by our bodies. Our bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 6:19). We now worship God in spirit and in truth. Our bodies are for worshipping God. The Lord dwells in our bodies through the holy mysteries of the Church. Through the Eucharist especially, he comes to dwell inside of us – in our hearts. When we receive communion, our heart becomes the tabernacle of the Lord in the temple of the Lord.

So, if these buildings would have been called neither church nor temple, what would they have been called? –  houses (οἶκοι). Christians first gathered in houses. This term is retained in our liturgy. Every time you hear the deacon praying “for this holy church and for all who enter it with faith, reverence, and the fear of God,” the original Greek word translated as “church” actually is οἶκος – house. The house of the Church. The house of the people of God gathered together to worship the Lord. And, I want the house to be full. The Lord talks about a house today and he says he wants it to be full.

By way of filling it, are we doing what Jesus tells us to do? Are we bringing in the poor and needy to share in our banquet? Or, do we think it’s for us but not for them? As we go about our lives, are we cajoling all we meet to join us and fill the house?

I want the house to be full. Don’t you? And I don’t care about it being full of money or full of people with money. I want it to be full of God’s people. All people. People in need. Also, the blind, the crippled, the lame, and the poor, says Jesus Christ himself (Luke 14:21). Are we doing everything we can to invite them? And to make our houses accessible to them – to the Church, which is the people, so that they can join us in the worship of almighty God? Are we offering to give them a ride? Are there people who want to come but can’t?

What could be more important than filling the house of the Lord with many to share in in his banquet? It doesn’t matter how much that costs. Let’s do all we’re able to toward that end.

The banquet in Jesus parable to us today is, of course, the heavenly banquet. But if it’s less clear, it’s also the banquet we celebrate at every Divine Liturgy. The Eucharistic banquet in which we participate is the heavenly banquet. There is no difference. It is the same banquet. The one that goes on in our houses is the same one going on in heaven. There’s a reason we call the liturgy Divine. It is an act of God. God is present there.

If you listen to the prayers of the Divine Liturgy, you’ll see that God himself has broken into our ordinary time and our ordinary life. He abolishes our earthly anxieties, if we let him. In the house of the Church, we occupy the time when the Lord has already come. The second coming is an accomplished act. It’s not only something we’re waiting for the future. The future is now. The past is now. We are present in Bethlehem at the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ in a stable in a cave in Bethlehem. We’re present also at his baptism in the River Jordan. And we’re present at the foot of his cross. And by his tomb. We’re present as he rises up out of the tomb. We’re present as he ascends again to the right hand of his Father in heaven. We’re present as the Holy Spirit descends upon us with his apostles. Here. Now. Today. We’re present as he comes again in glory. The Divine Liturgy is the heavenly banquet. It is not a rehearsal. It is not a drill. It is the one and only heavenly banquet.

So, do you ever make excuses as to why you cannot come? Let’s listen to Jesus’ parable about such excuses (Luke 14:16-21). He’s not buying it.

The ideal for us for Sundays and Great Feasts is to come and pray Vespers, Matins, and Divine Liturgy. “Evening, morning, and at noon, I will pray,” says the Psalmist (55:17). But we understand that circumstances make this difficult for most of us and impossible for some of us. So, if you can’t come to one, come to another. If you can’t come Sunday morning, come to Vespers Saturday evening. Participate to the extent you’re able. God sees the heart. He knows how legitimate your excuses are. Unlike us, he is a host who really knows those he has invited.

He knows also whether we doing what we can to bring others to the Lord. This is his command to us, remember. According to some research,[1] 82% of the unchurched say they would consider attending church if they were invited. At the same time, only 2% of people who go to church have invited a friend in the last year. As a result, seven out of ten unchurched people have lived their entire lives without ever having been invited to church by a friend.

The host in today’s parable instructs that we not only invite people to this banquet, but that we compel them to come in (Luke 14:23).  Let’s invite and go beyond inviting. Let’s offer somebody a ride. Or, let’s offer to meet them at the church and show them around or walk in with them and sit with them. Make them comfortable. Answer their questions.

I also learned that not very many people come to church because they saw or heard an advertisement. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t advertise. Even if only one person comes as a result, it’s worth spending quite a lot of money on advertising for the sake of that one person. We should advertise. But still it remains the case, that not a lot of people come to church because they saw an advertisement.

Also, perhaps more surprisingly to some, not a lot of people come to church because the pastor of that church invites them. That doesn’t mean I shouldn’t invite people. I should, I can, and I do. And it’s worth it. If only one person comes out of a thousand I invite, it’s worth inviting the thousand for the sake of the one. But still it’s the case that not a lot of people come to church because they’re invited by the pastor.

You know why most people actually come and join the church? It’s because they’re invited by a friend. This makes sense. Even Peter only came and saw Jesus because his brother invited him. Nathanael only came and saw Jesus because his friend Philip invited him (John 1:40-51).

What works is inviting our family and our friends again and again – people who know that we love them. That’s the key that makes all the difference in evangelization – love. If our house isn’t built out of love, then what is it built out of? If it’s built of something other than love, then we should certainly stop calling it a church.

 

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[1] Thom S. Rainer, The Unchurched Next Door

When a leper under the Mosaic covenant is healed of his leprosy, he is to go and show himself to the priest, who is to examine him and certify that he is indeed free of leprosy, so that he can perform the required rituals and sacrifices at the time of his cleansing (Lev. 14).

Today, ten lepers lift up their voices and shout to Jesus from a distance, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” (Luke 17:13). We can identify with the lepers at this point, I think. Wounded and broken, we cry out to the Lord from a distance, repeating these same words again and again in our Liturgy: ἐλέησον ἡμᾶς – have mercy on us. Well, Jesus does not respond by simply healing them – even though that’s what he has done in the past.

This isn’t the first time that Jesus heals a leper. Once, when a leper begged of him, “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean,” Jesus simply stretched out his hand, touched him, and said, “I will; be clean,” and immediately the leprosy left him (Luke 5:12-14).

This time, however, he tells them to go and show themselves to the priests. Remember, that’s what you’re supposed to do after you’ve been healed of leprosy. By rights or at least expectations, Jesus ought to have healed them and then sent them to show themselves to the priests. But that’s not what he does. He just tells them to go to the priests, without even so much as mentioning – except by implication – that they’re going to be healed at all. As St Cyril of Alexandria says, “He commanded them to go as being already healed” – though they were not already healed.

Remarkably, all ten lepers – to a man – step out in faith and obey Jesus’s instruction. And as they go, they are cleansed (Luke 17:14). They believe first and obey Jesus’s command and then, while doing so, they are healed. “Blessed are they who have not seen and yet believe” (John 20:29). They acted as if they had been healed – they were doing what healed people do – in obedience to Jesus Christ, and in doing so, they were in fact healed.

All ten of these lepers had faith – remarkable faith – and it is their faith that made them well (cf. Luke 17:19). More than seven times in the gospels, Jesus says to those whom he has healed, ““Your faith has saved you.” Or “made you well.” Or “made you whole.” Faith is key to our healing. But, what happens next shows us that faith alone is not enough to please the Lord.

One and only one of the lepers who were healed by Jesus returns to him, falls on his face, and gives him thanks (17:16). Jesus, exasperated at seeing only one tenth of the gratitude that he should see, says, “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the other nine?” (17:17). Now, if only one tenth of the Church offers thanksgiving to the Lord, we will exasperate him again. It’s clear that each of us should be like the tenth leper, and not like the other nine who offer no expression of gratitude.

Our Holy Father Athanasius says, “You recall that [Jesus] loved the one who was thankful, but he was angry with the ungrateful ones because they did not acknowledge their deliverer. They thought more highly of their cure from leprosy than of him who had healed them” (Festal Letter, 6).

These are like those who offer prayers to God only when they need or want something – who regard God as a sort of divine problem solver whose primary role is to make us happy. These are like those unconcerned with pleasing the Lord and concerned only with being pleased by the Lord. And they outnumber the grateful ten to one.

Maybe they have faith – certainly they do – but faith alone is not enough. It is also necessary to give thanks. How often we forget to give thanks.

As a sign of how rare it is, note that at no other time, in any of the healings recorded in any of the gospels does the healed person offer thanksgiving to Jesus. Others at other times give glory to God, but only this cleansed Samaritan leper glorifies God and then offers thanks.

Scripturally speaking, this thanksgiving is a potent thing. In all but a couple of instances in the New Testament, thanks is addressed to God – and not to humans. So when this healed leper glorifies God and thanks Jesus, I think he is acknowledging that this man who cured him is also the very God who created him.

But he was the only one of the ten to do so. Ingratitude is a common bad attitude – from that day to this. How often the saints among us go unthanked for their many good deeds. Nine out of ten times, you might say. Thanksgiving is what makes this particular healing story so worthy of our proclamation, our meditation, and our imitation.

Because when Jesus sees our faith, he not only heals us but also saves us and forgives us of our sins (Mark 2:5), which are the cause of all the suffering and death in the world. But take note: this time, Jesus says, “Your faith has saved you” to only one of the ten he has healed. Among the ten, only this one received in full the mercy for which they all cried out because this one alone thanked him.

The kind of faithfulness that saves us is no mere intellectual assent to a proposition, no mere belief or true opinion that Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior, as important as that is. All ten believed the Lord could heal them. But only one returned to thank him. And only that one was accounted faithful.

So, we must remember to be grateful. It can be hard in the midst of our sufferings to be grateful for the many blessing the Lord bestows on us each day and is bestowing on us even now and in eternity.

But, He is giving us life and giving it to us abundantly, even when it doesn’t feel like it (John 10:10). Let us thank him.

He blesses us with loved ones, our families, our neighbors, and our friends. Let us remember to thank him.

He gives us himself in the holy mysteries of our Church. Let us not forget to thank him.

Having offered him many prayers of thanksgiving every day of our lives, let us then also often come together to offer him the most perfect thanksgiving we can muster – the holy eucharist. The word for thanksgiving is εὐχαριστω – that is, eucharist. Eucharist means thanksgiving. Because the Son of God “took bread, gave thanks, broke it, and gave it to his holy disciples and apostles.”

Thanksgiving not only expresses a feeling of gratitude, but also places us in proper relationship to God, in whom we live and move and have our being. And the supreme way of offering thanks is the Eucharist, in which we will again today partake for the remission of our sins and for life everlasting.

The rich ruler becomes “sad” after Jesus shows him the way to “inherit eternal life” (Luke 18: 23, 18). Why should that make him sad? That’s what he asked for, isn’t it (18:18)? Yes, but the way Jesus shows him is uncomfortable. It’s not the answer he wanted. Perhaps he wanted a pat on the back for what he was already doing – a “well done, good and faithful servant” – and why not? He’d been keeping the commandments!

God knows that many of us fail to keep the commandments. This rich ruler did not commit adultery, did not kill, did not steal, did not lie. He honored his mother and his father. When Jesus began to list these commandments, the ruler must have been pleased. He had observed all these commandments from his youth (18:21), so hearing Jesus describe these as the way to eternal life must have felt reassuring at first, I would think.

The ruler had done so much already, in his own estimation. Surely following all these commandments should be enough? My brothers and sisters in Christ, there is no such thing as enough.

Upon hearing that the ruler has taken the step of following the commandments, Jesus has for him another step: “Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor… and come follow me.” If the ruler had not yet been following the commandments, I wonder if Jesus would have revealed to him this next step. I think not. He feeds us first with milk, not solid food, and gives us solid food only when we are ready (cf. 1 Cor 3:2). And, on the other hand, if the ruler had readily distributed all his wealth to the poor and followed Jesus, as many saints have done, he would then have been given another step to climb. This is what those saints have discovered.

There are those who have followed the way of Jesus and have given away all their wealth to the poor to follow after him. We celebrate one of these great saints of this coming week, Saint Nicholas. Also Saint Anthony the Great. Also Saint Francis of Assisi. Many have followed Jesus in this way of poverty. What they have discovered is that this, too, is not the end of their growth.

Eternal life is still not a done deal, even if we’ve grown to such a degree of radical trust in God. Rather, out there in the desert with no possessions and following Jesus, Saint Anthony was beset by countless demons and passions. He had to do battle out there still. The work was not done. There is always more growing to do.

We find growth uncomfortable. But Jesus is teaching us to embrace growth, which feels rather like embracing the cross. For as long as we do not embrace it, growth remains painful. We suffer growing pains. If we never embrace growth, the pain becomes everlasting. The rich ruler did not embrace growth, and so he went away sad.

I am convinced that growth is life and life is growth – and that eternal life is eternal growth. What must we do to inherit eternal life? Grow eternally. When we stop growing, it means we’re dead.

St. Gregory of Nyssa teaches us this in his book about the Life of Moses. Life is about becoming one with God, and God is boundless and perfect. “How can we reach the boundary when there is no boundary?” asks Gregory (paraphrased). “The one limit of perfection is the fact that it has no limit.” The race to virtue never ends (I, 5-6; cf. II, 242).

It’s important to remember that God commands us to be perfect. But perfection is unlimited, so how can we ever reach it? Only God is good, as Jesus reminds us today (Luke 18:19). St. Gregory observes, “The perfection of human nature consists perhaps in its very growth in goodness” (I, 10). Growth is the perfection we’re called to. Growth is life. “No limit… interrupt[s] growth in the ascent to God, since no limit to the good can be found nor is the increasing of desire for the good brought to an end because it is satisfied” (II, 239). There is “always… a step higher than the one [we have] attained” (II, 227). If we live virtuously, our capacity for more virtue will increase. Our capacity to love increases the more we love. It’s not a limited commodity. It doesn’t work like that. Our potential for growth is limitless, because the God calling us to himself is limitless.

In imitation of Christ, our Byzantine tradition constantly calls us to grow. It is not a minimalist tradition. You may have noticed. It does not propose to us the least we must do to in order to find a place in the back pew of heaven. This is not what Jesus does either. When we have grown to a certain point, he shows us that it is now time to grow to a still higher point. Our Byzantine tradition is a maximalist tradition. It proposes to us more than we can possibly do so that, no matter how much we have done, there is always more to do. There’s always another step. There’s always more growing to do.

In this season of the Philip’s fast, our tradition challenges us to grow, to give a bit more of ourselves, more of our time to prayer in the church and at home, more of our wealth to the poor. Let’s listen with some fear of God to Jesus’ admonishment about wealth today and his invitation to remember the poor (Luke 18:24-25, 22). Let’s make an effort to come to church once or twice more than we usually do during the week. Let’s go to a service we’ve never been to before. If we don’t sing the Divine Liturgy, let’s start singing – even if we only sing quietly at first. Let’s accept the challenges our tradition offers us to grow.

Since this Byzantine tradition of our is so challenging, some might be asking, why should I bother? It’ll be more convenient – won’t it? – and more comfortable to find a Roman Catholic parish nearby where I can get in and out of Mass in 45 minutes and then be about my business. Maybe business, after all, is what we really care about. Probably, most of us could find a parish closer to home, too. Being Byzantine these days takes so much extra effort and, really, what’s the point? It’s all the same thing, isn’t it?

I’m telling you, our tradition has something to offer you very much like what Jesus is offering the rich ruler today: opportunity for growth, which is life itself. We must stop looking at the inconveniences of our tradition and our situation as a problem to be avoided, and begin to embrace them as opportunities to grow in union with God. We must stop regarding our liturgical services as some drudgery to get through in order to fulfill some imagined obligation. Check the box and move on, as if that would help us grow in union with God. If we really pray our services, rather than waiting for them to be over, we wouldn’t care if they went on all day. Getting to the end isn’t the point, we’d realize. The Divine Liturgy has no end. If we don’t like praying together, we’re not going to be able stand it in heaven, because that’s what we do there. And not being able to stand it in heaven is a condition of being known as hell.

When we embrace our tradition, we will see how much it helps us grow and eventually we will realize is that it is possible to take joy in our growth. Because we are growing closer to the Lord, who is our true joy. If things other than the Lord are our joy, we find it drudgery to grow. Because growing in the Lord, after all, is growing apart from the things of this world, inasmuch as they are fallen, broken, and disordered by our sinfulness. As long as we resist this growth, it will cause us pain and life will be pain for us. As soon as we begin to take joy in growth, we begin to delight, even now, in the eternal garden of paradise.